Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c43.13

c43.13

From an account by one of those ubiquitous Chinese travellers who spent much of their lives in visiting the countries of Asia during the early and middle ages some idea of the conditions that prevailed at Angkor when the Cambodian kingdom was at the height of its power becomes possible It may be inferred from a description by Tcheou Ta-kouan² who sojourned there towards the end of the thirteenth century, that the Khmers were resolved into two social strata, ethnologically widely separated, consisting of a high caste ruling class on the one hand, and the aborigines of the country on the other. Such a state recalls that which existed in India when that country was becoming populated by the Indo-Aryans In Cambodia the ruling class was evidently composed of people of refinement and marked intellectual ability with notable cultural aspirations, while the indigenous inhabitants were merely "hewers of wood and drawers of water." The former, with their vision and perceptive minds, conceived the architectural schemes which are the surviving records of their rule, and being endowed with supreme power these were materialized by exploiting the original race in a manner not far removed from slavery. But between these two extremes of human strata there must have been a large and very vital community corresponding to a middle class, in all respects superior to the unskilled labour mentioned above, from whom were recruited, among others, the artists, craftsmen, designers, the master masons and the numerous skilled personnel who would be an essential factor in the production of such superb examples of architecture and the plastic art.